Tag Archive for: texas

American View: New Texas Legislation Encourages Hacking, Extortion, and Intimidation

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Texas recently did something catastrophically ill-advised on 1st September 2021. No, I’m not talking about making it illegal to discuss America’s history of racism and how it affected (and still affects) law, society, and justice. That was idiotic and makes us look like terrified bigots on the international stage. I’m also not talking about Texas making it legal for everyone to stroll around in public with loaded firearms even if they have no idea how to use them safely or properly whilst also being violent, unhinged, and/or committed to overthrowing the government. That, too, was staggeringly imprudent and will scare off tourists, transplants, and new corporate headquarters. Those self-owns were fully on-brand for Texas’s burn-in-all-down politicians but are dreary topics for another time.

No, today I want to talk about the inevitable ramifications of Texas making all abortion procedures illegal after six weeks from gestation – effectively ending legal abortion in Texas – while empowering private citizens to rat out their friends, family, co-workers, and neighbours that they believe had an abortion. But wait, there’s mote! Under the new law, private citizens are allowed to “turn in” literally anyone else they believe helped a pregnant woman get an abortion … even if it waws just to find a clinic’s phone number, get a ride, or buy painkillers … and get a $10,000 (about € 8,200) cash pay-out as a reward for being a volunteer state snitch.

That right there was some world class political hubris. The point of Texas’s blatantly unconstitutional legislation was to get the inevitable challenge to it taken up by the Supreme Court so that Roe vs. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal across the USA, could finally be overturned. It worked: on 1st September, the underqualified justices that the previous president packed into the court refused to hear the appeal, allowing Texas’s new law to stand.

To be clear, I’m not interested into getting into a faux debate with the attention addicted social media crowd on either side of the abortion issue. Chanting slogans and levying death threats isn’t my thing. As a security awareness person,…

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Hack the Plant Episode 12: ERCOT and the Texas Power Outage

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“All types of generation that are part of the ERCOT mix suffered or none of them were at full capacity. All types of generations suffered some sort of outage due to the weather….demand was exceeding the diminished supply. Power plants were tripping offline. There just was not enough supply to meet customer demand.”

Today on Hack the Plan[e]t,  Beth Garza, a senior fellow with the Energy & Environmental Policy Team at R St and former director of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, aka ERCOT explains the power outage that crippled the state of Texas back in February during a week of record-cold temperatures. Three severe winter storms and an electricity generation failure left almost 5 million without power, and gave rise to shortage of heat, food and water.

Over the course of her 35-year career in the electric utility industry,  Beth Garza has held a variety of leadership roles in generation and transmission planning, system operations, regulatory affairs and market design for both regulated and competitive entities.

In this episode, we discuss how ERCOT manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers – and how the massive power failure happened.

What does this power outage suggest about the resilience of our critical infrastructure? Join us for an in-depth discussion.

(Subscribe to Hack the Plant on Spotify or Apple, by RSS feed or search for it wherever you listen to podcasts.)

Transcript:

Joshua Corman: 

Our dependence on connected technology is growing faster than our ability to secure it, especially in areas affecting public safety and human life.

Bryson Bort: 

I’m Bryson Bort. And this is Hack the Plant. Electricity, finance, transportation, our water supply. We take these critical infrastructure systems for granted, but they’re all becoming increasingly dependent on the internet to function. Every day I ask and look for answers to the questions. Does our connectivity leave us more vulnerable to attacks by our enemies? I’m a senior fellow at the R street Institute and the co-founder of the nonprofit ICS Village, educating people on critical infrastructure security with hands-on examples, not just nerd stuff. I…

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Texas courts sign $98M contract with Tyler Technologies for case filing

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Written by Benjamin Freed
Jan 25, 2021 | STATESCOOP

Tyler Technologies, a major seller of government software, announced last week a new five-year contract with the Texas court system to run its electronic filing services.

The agreement, worth $98 million, is the largest in Tyler’s corporate history, and will keep the company as the e-filing vendor for criminal and civil courts across all of Texas’ 254 counties through at least 2027. The Texas Office of Court Administration has partnered with Tyler since 2012, when the state first implemented its e-filing requirements, which went statewide for civil cases in 2015 and for criminal proceedings in 2019.

Tyler’s initial contract was due to expire in 2022. The five-year agreement announced last week also includes an option to extend the e-filing system another five years through 2032.

Since Texas required electronic filing in all cases, the Office of Court Administration says it has reduced paper waste by about 420 million sheets, according to a press release.

““Electronic filing has been key to the Texas Judiciary’s ability to overcome disasters from hurricanes, to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to a ransomware attack,” David Slayton, the Office of Courts Administration’s administrative director, said in the press release.

The ransomware incident Slayton referred to occurred last May, prompting officials to take down individual courts’ websites and shut off internal file servers. However, the cloud-based electronic filing system was not impacted and allowed parties to continue submitting documents through the outage.

Tyler itself was the victim of a ransomware incident last September, though no evidence has been presented that it was related to the Texas courts attack.

The new contract beginning in 2022 also includes several upgrades to the filing system, including new self-service administrative tools for its roughly 425,000 users, reporting capabilities for court administrators and clerks and document checks to reduce the number of court filings that are returned to the filing party for corrections. It will also expand the variety of file formats…

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Former ADT Technician In North Texas Pleads Guilty To Hacking Home Security Cams, Faces Up To 5 Years In Prison

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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – A home security technician has pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into customers’ video feeds, announced Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Prerak Shah.

Telesforo Aviles, a 35-year-old former ADT employee, pleaded guilty to computer fraud on Thursday, Jan. 21, in federal court.

“This defendant, entrusted with safeguarding customers’ homes, instead intruded on their most intimate moments,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah. “We are glad to hold him accountable for this disgusting betrayal of trust.”

“The defendant used his position of employment to illegally breach the privacy of numerous people. The FBI works with our law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate all cyber intrusions and hold criminals accountable for their actions,” said FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew J. DeSarno. “Cyber intrusions do not only affect businesses, but also members of the public. We encourage everyone to practice cyber hygiene with all their connected devices by reviewing authorized users and routinely changing passwords. If you become the victim of a cybercrime, please contact the FBI through ic3.gov or 1-800-CALL FBI.”

According to plea papers, Aviles admits that contrary to company policy, he routinely added his personal email address to customers’ “ADT Pulse” accounts, giving himself real-time access to the video feeds from their homes.

In some instances, he claimed he needed to add himself temporarily in order to “test” the system; in other instances, he added himself without their knowledge.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Aviles took note of which homes had attractive women, then repeatedly logged into these customers’ accounts in order to view their footage for sexual gratification, he admits.

Plea papers indicate he watched numerous videos of naked women and couples engaging in sexual activity inside their homes.

Over a four and a half year period, Aviles secretly accessed roughly 200 customer accounts more than 9,600 times without their consent, he admits.

Aviles, who waived indictment and was charged via an information, now faces up to five years in federal prison.

The Federal…

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